søndag 28. august 2016

As is quite apparent to regular readers of this blog, I am a big enthusiast for the verse of Saint Lucian writer and 1992 Nobel laureate in literature Derek Walcott. This is the reason why I often turn to his poetry when I need blogposts that do not require much time to prepare, research or write, and that is, to me, a perfect excuse to highlight some of his lesser known poems, such as those from the early collections which did not make it into the collected poems edition published by Faber & Faber in 1986.

In this blogpost, I give you a short poem from his collection The Castaway, first published i 1965. I take the text from the 1969 Jonathan Cape paperback edition.

Statues

Stone will not bleed;Nor shall this vixor'ed prince, apotheozisedOn his stone steed,A barrel-bellied charger treading the air,Its tightening haunches setTo hurdle with its warrior the chasmBetween our age and theirs. Its eyes erupt, bulge in a spasmOf marble. We stareAt their slow power to corrupt;

Then turn to readAround another statue, civic-sized,Bare, halding head, Of some archaic, muscular aphoristLaurelled, toga unkempt, His forked hand raised like a diviner's rod,His face creased with the wiseExhaustion of a god. Their eyesWithhold amusement, mine, contempt.

Boys will be boys. Who can instruct them where true honour lies?Instinct or choice,Proclaims it lies withinWar's furious, dandiacal discipline.We, who have known

Its victims huddled in a reeking ditchOf the staff's iron light hurtling Saulinto pedestrian sainthood at his fall,Still praise that murderous energy of stone.

onsdag 24. august 2016

As can sometimes be seen on this blog, I'm very fond of juxtaposing medieval and modern cultural expression, be it folklore, literature, art, music or a range of other things. In this blogpost I'm taking a quick glance at the pike, nicely illustrated in Thomas de Cantimpré's book De Natura Rerum. As we see from this folio, the pike is called "esox". In a twelfth-century bestiary, Cambridge University Library II.4.26, edited and translated by T. H. White, however, it has been named "lupis". As White himself suggests in a footnote, this is probably a misspelling of "lucius", as the pike is known as "esox lucius". The bestiary's description of the pike goes as follows.

His wolfish greed has given the name of LUPIS to the Pike, and it is difficult to catch him. When he is encircled by the net, they say that he ploughs up the sand with his tai and thus, lying hidden, manages to escape the meshes.
- Anonymous, The Book of Beasts, edited and translated by T. H. White, Dover Editions, 2015: 202-03

As a modern counterpoint to this description, I give you Ted Hughes' famous poem from his collection Lupercal (1960). The following text is taken from poetryarchive.org.

Pike

Pike, three inches long, perfect Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold. Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin. They dance on the surface among the flies.
Or move, stunned by their own grandeur, Over a bed of emerald, silhouette Of submarine delicacy and horror. A hundred feet long in their world.
In ponds, under the heat-struck lily pads - Gloom of their stillness: Logged on last year's black leaves, watching upwards. Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds
The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs Not to be changed at this date; A life subdued to its instrument; The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.

Three we kept behind glass, Jungled in weed: three inches, four, And four and a half: fed fry to them - Suddenly there were two. Finally one.

With a sag belly and the grin it was born with. And indeed they spare nobody. Two, six pounds each, over two feet long High and dry and dead in the willow-herb -

One jammed past its gills down the other's gullet: The outside eye stared: as a vice locks - The same iron in this eye Though its film shrank in death.

A pond I fished, fifty yards across, Whose lilies and muscular tench Had outlasted every visible stone Of the monastery that planted them -

Stilled legendary depth: It was as deep as England. It held Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old That past nightfall I dared not cast

But silently cast and fished With the hair frozen on my head For what might move, for what eye might move. The still splashes on the dark pond,

søndag 21. august 2016

For many people, history revolves around its
kings and princes. This fascination seems to be a constant in recorded history,
and it has not released its grip on human imagination even in our modern times,
as evidenced by the many biographies, movies and of course gossip magazines in
which kings have their premier seats. As a historian who works on medieval
kings who were later claimed to be saints, I am frequently exposed to the often
obsessive interest some people – both lay and learned – cultivate for royalty
of ages past.

In recent years, this fascination has now very often moved its focus to the
bones of these royal dead. This in itself is not new, as royal tombs and graves
have been the subject of great interest throughout recorded history. For
medievalists, one of the most famous cases of such interest is King Arthur,
whose bones were said to have been found at Glastonbury Abbey in 1198 together
with those of Queen Guinevere, and whose remnants were re-interred in 1278 by
Edward I. Here, the earthly remains of the legendary king served as evidence
for the king actually being dead and therefore not a rallying-point for the
Welsh. The question of Arthur’s burial place is a recurring issue for certain
amateur historians and enthusiasts, and it was raised again as late as May 2016.

It is easy to understand why the bones of kings hold such a grip on popular imagination.
They are tangible vestiges of the past, and reminders that the things you read
about in books have a connection to the real, physical world. This is probably
part of the reason why the case of the Greyfriars Skeleton, discovered under a
car-park in Leicester in September 2012, gained such massive attention. When
the skeleton was identified as King Richard III in February 2013, media erupted
with enthusiasm and interest, and it the fascination which had long been in
place among many members of the global audience became immensely visible. The
Greyfriars Skeleton was something of a milestone in the popular history of
royal bones, as it proved to the world that lost historical kings could in fact
be found. In the years following, we have seen people urging for a search for
both King Alfred and Harold Godwinsson.

Miniature of the statue (1973) of Olaf Haraldsson by Dyre Vaa, Stiklestad Centre

In my native Norway, the interest in dead kings is
also significant. Only about eight months after the Greyfriars press
conference, a Norwegian made the claim that King Magnus VI Lagabøte (Law-mender),
who died in 1280, was buried in the wall of Bergen Cathedral. Following a
georadar examination of the walls, objects were located inside it. But the case
will not be pursued until the cathedral is due for restoration in 2018.

The Norwegian king who has gained the most attention throughout history, and
who continues to do so today, is Olaf Haraldsson, the Viking-turned-Christian
who died at Stiklestad north of Trondheim in 1030 in an attempt to regain the
Norwegian throne. Olaf was proclaimed to be a saint in 1031 by Bishop Grimkell,
and in the twelfth century Olaf’s body was moved to the new cathedral in
Trondheim which was begun by Archbishop Eystein Erlendsson.

The death of Olaf Haraldsson

Here from the old exhibition at Stiklestad Centre

Olaf Haraldsson is an important part of the
Norwegian imagination, and part of this imagination has been concerned with the
bones of the saint-king. The fascination with Olaf’s bones re-emerged in July
2016, when Bodvar Schjelderup – a professor emeritus of architecture – made the
national press with the claim that Olaf Haraldsson did not rest somewhere in
Nidaros Cathedral, but in the castle Steinvikholm further north in the
Trondheim fjord. The castle was built in 1532 by Archbishop Olaf
Engelbrektsson, who was the last of the Catholic archbishops of Norway. The
background for Schjelderup’s claim is that the shrine of Olaf Haraldsson was indeed
removed to Steinvikholm when the archbishop fled Trondheim during the
Reformation. However, as professor of medieval history Steinar Imsen and
archaeologist Øystein Ekroll both have pointed out, there are contemporary
sources from the mid-sixteenth century saying that the reliquary of the
saint-king was brought back to Nidaros Cathedral in 1564, and all historical
evidence points to the conclusion that Olaf is still buried somewhere in the
cathedral.

Steinvikholm Castle

Photo by Frode Inge Helland

Courtesy of Wikimedia

Around mid-August 2016, just a few days ago, the
matter of Olaf’s burial site was again raised, and again it made the national
press. This time, the claim was put forth by Joralf Gjerstad, a healer from the
town Verdal north of Trondheim. Gjerstad has gained national attention for his
alleged ability to heal, and in an article in one of the leading Norwegian
newspapers he claimed to have had a vision which showed that the royal saint
was not buried in Trondheim but rather at Stiklestad, the place of his death in
1030. According to the vision, the king was taken away after the battle and
buried in a small hill.

This ongoing discussion concerning the remains of Olaf Haraldsson is testament
to the importance of studying medieval history, because the past will always
remain relevant and for that reason we will always need experts who can sift
the nonsense from the truth. Unfortunately, however, this discussion concerning
Olaf Haraldsson’s bones also reveals the almost liminal place which the expert
inhabits on the national stage, and this is a matter of great concern.

In the two cases reported here, the news outlets have given precedence to the claims
of amateurs and put them on the same level as experts. This is a trend which is
quite common in today’s media world, and it perpetuates the notion that experts
and non-experts are to be listened to equally. Such a notion is false, and it
can be very damaging in certain cases. As for the discussion about Olaf Haraldsson’s
bones, there is not much immediate damage to be made. However, it helps
solidifying a very dangerous trend, and as such it should not be taken lightly.

Nidaros Cathedral

There are no good reasons to pay attention to
the claims put forth by either Schjelderup or Gjerstad – or for that matter
Gunnar Rosenlund who made claims about Magnus VI. While experts like Steinar
Imsen and Øystein Ekroll have dedicated much of their professional lives to
gain a thorough understanding of the Norwegian Middle Ages, the counter-claims
are made by men driven by ideas well beyond the empirical and well beyond
historical science. For instance, Gunnar Rosenlund consulted a psychic in order
to find the tomb of King Magnus. Bodvar Schjelderup is a pyramid enthusiast who
imagines that the bones in the shrine taken back to Nidaros Cathedral had been
swapped, and that Olaf’s actual bones still reside in the castle. Furthermore, his claim that Olaf Haraldsson resides at Steinvikholm is ultimately founded on a numerical game with the angles of the Kheops pyramide, as he himself stated in an interview in Trondheim's student magazine Under Dusken in 1997. Joralf
Gjerstad has formulated a vision which is contrary to every single medieval
source dealing with the death of Olaf (and there are many of them). That
Gjerstad had a vision is probably a historical fact, many people experience visions
in the same way that people dream. But just like a dream is a reality only
within the mind of the dreamer, so there is no reason to think that the mental
images in Gjerstad’s head should have any consequence for the physical world.

Stiklestad Church

Talking about Gjerstad’s claim, a relative of
mine then said that it was only to dig up the area. And it is true, the easiest
way to deal with these claims is to follow the logic of them to the bitter end
and actually perform the searches. But such a solution is itself deeply
problematic. First of all, if we are to dig up a place because a local healer
has had a vision that goes contrary to professional consensus, we are letting
amateurs dictate the priorities of historical research. I don’t think I speak
too harshly when I say that that is intolerable. Secondly, to perform searches
in order to debunk the fantasies and imaginings of amateurs will cost money,
time and energy that could be much better spent following the priorities of
experts who know which excavations are most needed.Thirdly, if the whims of amateurs are to be
heeded in this way, amateurs are not only dictating the priorities of
historical research but also of the national attention. In a time when it has
become increasingly challenging for non-experts to filter out the facts from
the dubious, the voices of experts should not be obscured by such searches –
because even though experts are allowed to speak against such claims, it is the
amateur’s claims which will always be the loudest because it is that claim
which dictates the search.

For a medievalist, there will always be struggles against poorly founded notions
and wild claims. The on-going discussion about the bones of Olaf Haraldsson is
a good reminder of to what lengths these claims can go.

onsdag 17. august 2016

August has been a terribly hectic month for me so far, and that has taken its toll on my blogging. For years, my aim has been to provide at least four blogpost each month, and sometimes this can only be achieved by some filler-pieces like the one you are reading now. Nonetheless, I want also these filler-pieces to be meaningful or to be worth reading, and so I have decided this time to unearth two lesser-known poems by one of my favourite poets, Geoffrey Hill. Frequent readers of this blog will have noticed my love for his verses several times, and indeed this is only one of several blogposts featuring his poetry. These poems are both taken from his first collection, For the Unfallen (1959).

Om meg

Norwegian medievalist, bibliophile, lover of art, music and food. This blog is a mixture of things personal and scholarly and it serves as a venue for me to share things I find interesting with likeminded people.